Who Gets Who's Food?

[sadiesdad]

Well, we have Lily that just passed 1 yr old back in July, and Jethro that is about 5-6 months old. We fed Lily and her sister, kitten food for the first 11 months, and them put them on adult food. We have always used and liked the dry Purina cat chow, and free feeding. We had Jethro separate from Lily for awhile, so he was eating his kitten chow, and she was eating her cat chow. Now they are together all the time, and we keep seeing him wanting to eat the cat chow, and Lily eating the kitten chow, and lately seems like no one is eating the kitten chow very often.

What can we do? We really can't feed them separately, because they roam freely around the house and eat what they want, when we aren't watching. I really didn't want to start Jethro on the cat chow yet, not sure how big of a difference it makes. They both eat the Temptations, and Friskies crunchy snacks, a tiny bit in the morning, and a nice helping (in the palm of my hand, it's about as big as a small plum) in the evening.

 

[MissMolly08]

I would probably look for a food labeled "All Life Stages". Cat Chow is not the worst food but it has lots of corn that cats don't need. I had my cat on it for 9 years and she ended up overweight being free fed (I know some cats do fine with free feeding though, mine just can't self regulate).
Do they get any wet food?

 

[MissMolly08]

I would probably look for a food labeled "All Life Stages". Cat Chow is not the worst food but it has lots of corn that cats don't need. I had my cat on it for 9 years and she ended up overweight being free fed (I know some cats do fine with free feeding though, mine just can't self regulate).
Do they get any wet food?

I was just looking over the formulas for the Cat and Kitten chow... are you feeding the "Indoor" adult or the "Complete"?
The only difference I see between the Complete Adult and the Kitten versions is more protein in the Kitten (which kittens need to grow). Fat and Calories are comparable so really, higher protein is not going to hurt your adult cat. I'm not sure that the other way around (kitten eating cat chow) would provide your kitten with all the protein it needs to grow though...
If it's the "Indoor" adult, that version has MUCH less protein AND fat than the kitten version which would not be optimal for growth.

 

[sadiesdad]

We had just been feeding her the Complete, but my wife had just bought a bag of the "Indoor" because she seems to be gaining a little weight.

 

[orange&white]

I agree that the kitten chow for both cats would be preferable to the cat chow for both (you especially don't want the kitten filling up on the Indoor Formula). If you want to free feed and you don't want to isolate the cats to separate rooms, there is nothing you can do to keep them from eating whatever food they want. So you either just let them choose which food or combination they wish, or you pick one food for both of them.

Since Lily is gaining weight, I would seriously consider stopping the free feeding and putting both cats on scheduled meal times. You would also be able to better control which cat eats what food.